Our Correspondent
Kohima | January 25
After deleting 2 lakh proxy voters in Nagaland State’s electoral roll, the state now has an electorate strength of 11, 38,000. This was informed by N Moa Aier, Chief Electoral Officer (Officiating), Nagaland, while speaking at the 7th National Voters’ Day held in Kohima today with the theme ‘Empowering young and future voters.’
Aier said that after the Systematic Voters Education and Electoral Participation (SVEEP) was launched, the Election Department started better management of the electoral roll.
This, he said led to the decrease in the electorate of Nagaland, with the department deleting a large number of proxy voters. For instance, in 2011, the electorate strength was 13.38 lakh voters. He said this was made possible through combined efforts of all officials from the Chief Electoral Office, observers, EROs, AEROs, SOs, BLOs, NGOs, the public and especially former CEO, Sanjay Kumar. Aier further maintained that the state e/roll is getting purer every year. He meanwhile acknowledged that the clean election drive has also received support from political parties, NGOs like Naga Hoho, ENPO, NMA, ENMA, NSF, YN, TNB, BASN, ACAUT and especially the NBCC and other churches.
He called upon all to be more pro-active this year “because we have to face another election next year in Feb-March 2018.” The CEC (Officiating) informed that candidates would start canvassing this year and stressed on the need to educate people “before the electors swallow the hook of inducements that may be offered by candidates.”
Administering the National Voters’ Day pledge, Chief Secretary Pankaj Kumar said that each person’s vote has equal value, and called for a collective effort to improve the electoral process in Nagaland.
He also lamented that money power, muscle power and feasting are the main problems in the state when it comes to elections. Kumar cited the example of Mizoram, where according to him the peaceful election process has been enabled as expenditure is less and elections are more orderly.
He urged the new voters to strengthen and make election process better and go against malpractices. Lithrongla G. Chishi, Secretary, Co-operation and Director, ATI encouraged every student who has completed 18 years to enrol in the Electoral roll. She asserted that every voter has to participate and educate the electors to fight for their own rights. Vilokali Zhimomi, Miss Nagaland 2016 and State Icon (SVEEP) also shared her vision for a clean election, where the tenets of democracy are protected through an educated electorate, which refuses to partake in bribery and violence.
